The shadow of the past - long, sorry!

[Aliasalias]

Hi, I’ve name changed for this for reasons that will be obvious. I’m feeling really down and would really appreciate talking to someone who has been in a similar position.

I’m an adult now with children of my own. I have friends, a job, a home, and people I love.

When I was a child my father wasn’t around (can’t blame him). It was just me and my mother. She used to threaten to kill me, burn me, shut me up in the dark, wake me up in the night, jeer at me, imitate me. Refused me privacy - I didn’t have a bedroom. Not allowed to have friends round. More things like that. And she regularly did stuff to me that I see now - now that I have kids - that it is difficult to frame it as not being sexual in nature, to at least some extent. I don't know that it was motivated by sexual feeling, maybe it was enjoying the feeling of power, enjoying cruelty, a sort of enjoyable sadism for her, but it was physically inappropriate and invasive and would be classed now as sexual abuse, I think.

There are no happy memories of my childhood for me to look back on, only fear. As an adult, with the benefit of hindsight, I genuinely think she could very easily have killed me. She came close. It happens. I was lucky - I learnt how to appease her, and survived.

I have hated her for as long as I can remember. Loathed her. As a child I used to have one recurring nightmare about her - escaping from her with my father, with her chasing us, on a broomstick, screeching. In my 20s I had a different recurring nightmare- that she was coming to kill me and someone I loved: I could see her coming but could not make anyone hear me when I asked for help and told them to run. (As a child I tried to tell people what was going on- no one believed me. She was a pillar of the community.)

Anyway, I’m still in touch with her. Really, this is because I’m still frightened of her. I don’t want any emotional engagement with her, and in a weird way breaking off contact would be that. I don’t know if anyone who has been in a similar position will understand that.

But I have strictly avoided actually letting her into my life. I talk to her about the weather. I listen to her complaining about her life. But I never tell her anything that matters to me. She doesn’t know the names of my friends, or colleagues, or the man I love. She doesn’t know what I cook, or where I go at weekends, or what tv I watch, or what I read, or anything about my values or interests. That’s how I want it, because her knowing anything about me makes me feel polluted.

Today I had to tell her something personal about my life. I had to do it to avoid causing hurt to someone else (don’t want to go into details). I just had to.

Now I feel awful. I’ve created a life for myself. I don’t want her knowing anything about it. I don’t want her shadow falling over my home. I am frightened that I’ll find it difficult to cope - it took me a long time to build a life, and be happy: now I feel she’s creeping up behind me, polluting my life with her miasma. It’s like having a slug crawl up my leg.

I know this is irrational. But I wondered if anyone who has been in a similar position had any experience they could share - about how to maintain the integrity and privacy of the life you have built and the person you have become, free of the past.

I haven’t posted this in stately homes because I had quite significant difficulties coming to terms with my childhood experiences - self harming, major depression, suicudal ideation. So I think this area is where it belongs.

Well, I’m going to bed now. It has helped to get this off my chest. I just so want to be free of the shadow of the past. And I can’t tell friends in real life - the details are just all too horrible. I should say I’ve cone a long way. I’m normally a happy person nowadays. But having to reveal something of myself to her has really thrown me back.

I'm so sorry you went through that as a child, this was really uncomfortable reading so I can only imagine what it was like to live it.
The problem with the irrational is that we can't make it rational and box it away. It just is. She intruded on every part of your being as a child, and you have maintained careful boundaries for entirely sensible reasons as an adult but now you have had to break them down a little and all this is flooding in. And I believe sometimes that happens because we are looking to heal in a different way. Have you had therapy? I was wondering from your personal history of suicidal ideation, self-harm and depression if you have, but I wonder if you could take it up again now and bring this post to therapy to discuss. There are paths to freedom from the past, and your post really sounds to me as though you are ready to release and let go. I really hope you find the freedom that you are looking for.

I don't have experience but I'm OP this sounds tough. You maybe feel by having to tell her that one thing you feel vulnerable again and feeling like she might be seeping control back. She isn't. Whatever you had to tell her is that and that alone,and you are not slipping. Look at that one bit of info as separate. Keep doing what you are doing to manage her. You are so so strong,you've built a life,don't let this take you back steps xx

Didn't want to read and run. Just wanted to reach out and say it makes me so sad to think that people can be so mean like this and to think of you as that scared child . Also that its amazing how strong and resilient people can be, and it sounds like you are OP.

Those feelings you have are what you feel. It's up to you what you share, what kind of relationship you have with her, when, if at all. Also you aren't responsible for any hurt she causes.

The only advice I can give is to become very busy, and infrequently available to her. Perhaps now is the time you are ready to let go, she really has no control over your happiness

Alia, I'm so sorry, you have had a horribly abusive childhood, your mother is despicable and monstrous, you didn't deserve any of this, you deserved to be loved and cherished like every other child deserves.
I think I get what you are saying about not wanting to go no contact, a breakup like that would always trigger emotions and because your mother has been so inappropriate anything that triggers anything must feel very frightening to you because there are a lot of things that you need to keep buried... That was a bit clumsily expressed but I hope you get what I'm saying?
My mother wasn't anywhere near as extreme as yours but there was something weird and nasty about her and it was a lot to do with power and control.
I hope you can find some way to put her in the past, can you gradually reduce contact with her?
You deserve peace and happiness, I hope you can find it 💐

Reading your post again you paint a very vivid picture, especially when you talk about the miasma, I can relate to this feeling of wanting to distance yourself from your parents, I have always instinctively held myself separate from my parents but I'm reluctant to completely cut contact with the one who seems the most dangerous, with that one I want to keep tabs on them until they die to make sure they can't do anything that might cause me problems.
I wonder if giving her some misinformation would help to counter the feeling that you have exposed yourself to harm from her by giving her information about yourself?

Also have you thought about EMDR? It's a type of therapy that can help with processing traumatic memories, you don't have to tell the therapist any of the details of the memories, you don't have to talk about them if you don't feel that you want to💐

I'm so sorry you had to go through that as a child and even now as an adult.

Your descriptions remind me very much of the mother in the 'Child called It' books.

If there is anything I have learnt over the years, through various traumas, it's: If you sweep it under the carpet, it's hidden for a while but it still grows and eventually tendrils start to creep out. Before you know it, the tendrils are massive and attached to other parts of your life.

I think you need some counselling. This is holding one hell of a lot of power over you and you need to get your power back. You've already created your own life, you're incredibly strong and brave to have survived what you did. You have that power.

It's hard to face demons. Especially when they're real people who are still, in some way, part of your life.